Canadians are conflicted about the Northern Gateway oil pipeline. A recent Angus Reid poll puts roughly a third in favour, a third against, and a third undecided. The pipeline would connect our Athabasca oil sands with Asian markets, providing a global outlet for this important resource. But opponents fear that green lighting this project endangers the west coast environment and signals business as usual – further enabling our fossil fuel addiction when we should be beginning to wean ourselves off them. It is a dilemma only too familiar – development vs. conservation.
There are two main questions regarding the Northern Gateway pipeline. Should a pipeline from Alberta’s oil sands to the west coast be built? And if yes, what route should it take? Today we’ll tackle the first. Next column, the second.
The opposed to this project can articulate their argument in two loaded words – climate change. While there can be no doubt that humankind has influenced climate change, there is still great dispute what to do about it. Scientists agree that the time to act is now, but the massive disruptive economic changes called for won’t result in environmental benefits for decades or centuries. Furthermore, Canada would have to convince not just the western world, but also the developing world (notably China and India) to drastically curb their greenhouse emissions. We would all have to quit together. Trying to block Alberta oil from reaching markets is akin to blocking drugs from reaching users. Without grappling with the underlying reasons that cause addiction we’ll fight a losing cause.
Northern Gateway is one battle in the overall war over climate change and not even a major one. Killing it will not have an appreciable effect on greenhouse emissions. Blocking one avenue for delivering oil will not assuage our global dependence on it. However, from the perspective of China and India blocking the pipeline highlights the hypocrisy of the West. In the upcoming decades oil will be desperately needed by China and India – markets that Northern Gateway is meant to serve. China and India’s goal is to elevate the lifestyles of billions of Chinese and Indians to Western levels. By trying to block Northern Gateway we also implicitly try and block their right to live like us. It is the height of hypocrisy that the West, which developed on the back of fossil fuels and brought us to this point, should now deny that same path to the rest of the World. We will need the cooperation of China and India in the future and their trust will not be gained with incoherent arguments. Protecting our remaining pristine wilderness and curbing greenhouse emissions are laudable goals, but they ignore the immediate plight of developing countries to feed, clothe and house their people.
So do we go off the environmental cliff together in the name of lifestyle equality? No, but we must understand how it must look to the rest of the world when the rich ask the poor to do without. Before we do that Canadians must ask each other to consume less. To do that environmentalists must convince us. Blocking the pipeline will not stop climate change or help Canadians consume less. Thus instead of blocking Northern Gateway environmentalists need to focus on articulating a coherent alternative to the current economic model – an area where they up to now have failed. Environmentalists are good at saying no, but have not yet offered a viable alternative path. So for the present time we have no option, but to continue down this road.
Yes, Northern Gateway must be built.